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I asked Rosalind to marry me.
    There were several reasons propelling me towards this proposal. The first, obviously, was that I could stand the strain of a double life no longer. The second was that I had begun to suspect my father had intuited what was going on with the result that he was becoming ill with worry about me – and I just couldn’t risk him getting sick; he was now at an age when any illness could kill him. The third reason was that my ordination was looming on the horizon and I knew that once I was a priest no more dabbling with Debbies and Doreens would be possible. And the fourth reason was that I had just had a bad fright when a condom had broken and Tracy had mused: ‘It might be kind of fun to be pregnant: This remark horrified me so much that I even felt it was a call from God to reform. I prayed feverishly for the grace to alter my life, and on the morning of the day when I was due for my next chaste date with Rosalind I opened my eyes, sat bolt upright in bed and thought: I’ll do it.
    So I did. I proposed and was accepted. Happy ending. Or was it?
    The best thing about Rosalind was that I had known her all my life and found her familiarity relaxing. She was the granddaughter of a certain Colonel Maitland, now dead, who had been a friend of my mother’s and who had owned the largest house in Starrington Magna apart from the Manor. Rosalind still lived at this house with her parents. She was a church-goer, musical, intelligent and good-looking in that slim, slightly equine way which is such a recurring feature among the English upper-classes. She had a part-time job doing special flower- arrangements for a Starbridge florist, and was beginning to receive freelance commissions to plan the floral side of weddings. Kind, friendly and a good organiser, she clearly had all the right attributes for a clerical wife, and I could now look forward to living happily ever after.
    ‘There’s one big favour I want to ask you,’ I said. ‘Could we keep the engagement unofficial at the moment? I’d like to announce it on the day of my ordination.’
    Now, why did I say that? I didn’t like to think. But Rosalind, perfect Rosalind, said what a super idea, we’d then have a double reason to celebrate, what fun it would be tossing back all the champagne.
    ‘Do we keep absolutely mum?’ she added. ‘Or do we let the cat out of the bag to a favoured few?’
    I was anxious to set my father’s mind at rest. ‘Okay, a favoured few – but no notice in The Times yet.’
    Rosalind’s parents were delighted. Rosalind’s best friend was delighted. Rosalind’s favourite godmother was delighted. My father professed himself delighted but went right on being crucified by an anxiety which was invisible to the eye but searing to the psyche.
    A week later I wound up in bed with Tracy at Langley Bottom.
    At that point, being twenty-five years old and no fool, I realised that unless I got help in double-quick time I was going to crash into the biggest mess of my life. I couldn’t talk to my father. He might have died, finally tortured to death by his anxiety. I couldn’t talk to Aelred Peters. Resourceful though Father Peters was in treating the problems caused by abnormal psychic activity, I felt that mopping up something so prosaic as a sex-mess would be beyond him. But there was still one man who I thought could help me.
    I made an appointment to see the Bishop of Starbridge, Dr Charles Ashworth.
    VII
    Bishop Ashworth was the main reason why the Theological College was a dead loss, but in my hour of need I didn’t let that prejudice me against him. In his pre-episcopal days he had been a distinguished professor of divinity at Cambridge. That was the problem. It’s dangerous to let divinity professors out of their ivory towers to roam unfettered through the Church of England; the temptation to convert theological colleges into minor outposts of major universities is apparently irresistible, but theological colleges